Burgundy under siege...

Burgundy has been swallowed whole by an immense fog that is thicker than the proverbial pea soup. It's so intense that there's hardly any daylight at all - must be what it's like in Iceland or Sweden in the winter - 24 hours of darkness. Very bizarre stuff! Even more bizarre was that after carefully driving through the fog on my way down to the Beaujolais this morning, I drove up high up into the hills headed for Julien Sunier's place in Avenas, and turned a hairpin corner to see this:

Passing through 1000', I was suddenly above the fog, and burst through to a gorgeous sunny day! The views are absolutely stunning up there - Beaujolais is truly the most beautiful part of Burgundy. Julien of course had forgotten our apointment, and was down the hill in the fog working his vines in Fleurie when I arrived. I rang his cell, and while waiting for him I enjoyed the glory of his very special spot.

His wines are even prettier than the view - but then if you're in our Burgundy Club you already know that. Our allocation of his 2014s is already sold-out, so we'll have to wait for his 2015s next fall. I'm very excited to announce, however, that we will have some new wines from Sunier to offer you very shortly. Not Julien, however, but his younger brother Antoine Sunier, who started his own domaine in the 2014 vintage and is making wines that rival Julien's for beauty and grace. He's got really nice old-vine parcels of Morgon and Regnié, and I'll have a pre-arrival offering ready for you soon. These are flat-out superb wines - I am truly stoked!

After lunching with the Sunier brothers, I had another stop in Beaujolais that I can't mention at this point, and then headed back up to the Côte Chalonnaise to taste the lineup at Domaine Ninot. Errel Ninot was enjoying a rare day off, so I tasted with her brother Flavien, who's been running the estate with her for the past few years. As always, there were several great examples of great quality-to-price ratio wines at Ninot, and the 2014s will be ready in the spring. I can hardly wait. Neither can the Ninot tasting room kitty -

And here is team Sunier - Antoine center, Julien right, and Leon the vineyard crew at left.

With that I'm off to fight my way through the fog and join Thiébault Huber and family for dinner in Beaune. More from the trenches as it happens...